I have been very frank with Nikki about what i can embrace and what I can't.  I think it's a crossroads of people's needs clashing.  It's like no one really wants a gay or lesbian person to be forced into a hetero relationship in anyway, we accept that sexuality isn't a choice.  So if we accept that our sexuality is not an easily made choice, but a complex result of our biological and life experiences for lesbian women and gay men, then we also have to accept that this is true for heterosexual me and women too, as well as the only person truly getting a choice to any degree are the inherently bisexual. 

SO....now you have a probably heterosexual woman in a long term relationship with their partner in your example suddenly in a lesbian relationship, there is no way it's fair to expect her to be able to rewire her sexuality, but absolutely fair to expect her to treat her partner with dignity and respect after giving her a freakout period which Nikki wisely stayed outta my way during, adn I explain why below.  And this is the heart of my resistance to hrt for Nikki.  Even when I was more actively bisexual in my physical responces, Nikki as a woman would not have hit the scales.  I'm having to really concentrate on being sexual with him in dress.  That is disorienting for me.  Sexuality is the time you let go, not the time you put on a complicated mental, emotional, and physical performance.  I'm working with him to teach him how to make it less disorienting for me, for example, since he gets an emotional reaction from me interacting with the breast forms I do this, but to me they are tactily weird.  They don't FEEL right, from the plasticy weirdness on the outside to the way they move.  So I told him he needs to not just stand there and smile vaguely at me, he needs to perform as if he was feeling it so that my psyche can react to that.  Without him putting in that effort, it feels like playacting and kind of horrible.  Not real.  My sexuality is focused on what i can do to my partners, the physical feelings that I can bring them and their reactions to me.  It always has been.  I can't help that about myself more than a gay man can help responding to men that he finds attractive.  So I can give him the emotional behavior he needs like this that he wasn't getting before, and he can still give me the physical connection that I"m not ashamed to admit I need also.  The things come off, and the sex is fantastic.

So it seems like a simple solution for us would be transition, right?  Then it would be real and working? Not so much. I have had sex with women, and relationships.  I almost permanently stayed in a committed three way with a married couple and had sex equally with both, thing Anita Blake with Micah and Nathaniel with one man and two women instead, and it functioned almost like that, but there wasn't enough common ground for me to really be happy even though the warm fuzzies where there. 

But this is where it gets really complicated.  I have rather specific criteria for my ability to be intimate with other women, and Nikki as a woman hits zero of them, emotionally or physically.  I can't help those criteria, they are not random whims or choices.  But Nikki as a man has always pushed all my buttons in both arenas.  And culturally we like to pretend sex isn't important in a marriage.  The messages to wait for marriage, the implication that those who don't deserve whatever illnesses or pregnancies come to them, the downlooking at single mothers, there is a strong cultural sex bias that pretends that sexuality is not a HUGE factor in marriage.  And yet sexual incompatibility is a huge factor in many divorces.  And cis spouses of both genders who married someone without knowing before and were presented with a certain reality, are suddenly in a position where they have to choose between vows and their own sexual and emotional needs. 

No one wants to hurt their partners, and I fully believe everyone must do what they need to to be happy.  However, the reality is that these partners do get hurt.  I'm still working through the conflict between Nikki not allowing me to lie to him or compartmentalize me out of the emotional areas of my life, and finding out that he did that to me for 18 years.  This started before we married, and he did actively lie to me.  That has an effect.  I chose to work through that and continue to do so, but I would be lying if I didn't freely admit this has me spiraling around in my head.  I chose to do my best to work through this with him because we are good together, and I truly love him.  But it was unfair for him to keep a secret this big, especially under the 'we have to be fully honest with each other to make this work' emotional umbrella he put us in.  This is not blame, this is frank what is happening to Bree in this time period talk.  Nikki is not always awesome, he has deep flaws like everyone else.  But this is our reality, so I'm trying to navigate it.

And there is no such thing as one person happy in a marriage.  Transition is absolutely freedom for the person suffering gender disphoria.  I understand that.  However, I also understand what it means to watch the person you love suddenly admit a huge part of it was an act, cover, deception, or misery for them, however it presented.  This forces us to question our sexual worth, whether we want to or not.  "Why aren't I enough to make him happy?  He told me for almost two decades I was!".  There is a lot of pain. 

But just as we would never force a heterosexual woman into a relationship with a lesbian woman, we have to realize that is what transition does to many wives.  Some can adapt fully.  Some like me can go 2/3s of the way.  Some partial like what Emma spoke of with her wife.  But these are women who are having to rewrite their entire emotional and sexual scripts with this. 

And we are given really contradictory information.  We read threads about how the tg person is the same perosn before and after, and yet behavior changes.  There is a sudden euphoria that they can be themselves.  So if they couldn't be themselves, and nothing will change in who they are, why is there a need to change then?  (I'm not arguing that anyone should not transition, I'm explaining my confusion).   But I understand that people DO need to transition, then therefore, perhaps aren't fully aware of how much changes to us.  Maybe my understanding of hrt is flawed, but as I understand it there is a second puberty, with all that entails.  I went through puberty, HUGE emoitional and mental changes as well as physical.  Our very thinking is affected by our bodies as well as our life experiences.  For the transitioning spouse, this is freedom.  For the other spouse, this is your life mate turning into someone you don't know.  Add your sexual orientation to that, and it can get really messy. 

I don't know what will happen if Nikki realizes this isn't enough to make him happy and me happy together.  I can't make promises about that, it's not more fair to make me promise to stay in a marriage that is emotionally and physically totally different for his needs than it is for me to tell him he can't transition for mine. 

I'm doing well, I really am.  I have not told a single lie about my feelings here.  There is just a really painful side to all this too that I"m working through.  How much change and hurt is too much for a marraige to survive?  Each one has to decide seperately.  But it really helps to be here because I have a real sense that you all understand the changes I'm encourntering and can guide me with the practical and physical, but you all can also understand my side of the Bree and Nikki story too.  That it's like everything in life, all about trying to balance two people's needs in the emotional, mental, and phsyical.  I can't even imagine how I would be feeling if I"d never even wanted to, let alone had, sex with another woman.  That gives me a sort of hope that a purely strait life experience put into this wouldn't have I guess. 

I guess ultimately it will only change in cases where the spouse has latent or outright bisexual feelings.  Imagine how trapped it feels to be in a body that doesn't match your inner truth, and then realize it feels the same for us when our life partner suddenly changes and then expects us to magically morph our sexuality to suit them.  Sometimes two people can be happy together, sometimes two people can only be happy apart.  It's a sad reality, but either it's true that our sexuality is hard wired and not a choice, or it's not.

I'm sorry that was a disorganized novel, but I"m trying to be as open as I can to the question asked. 

Karen,

As I think you know about me I don't have plans to transition. Yes, that may change and I can't predict that. But for now, that's my plan and provides maybe some context for what I'm going to say here now.

My wife has been clear to me that a) she's terribly afraid of losing me, and b. she's not a lesbian. So, I'm pretty certain that if I started transitioning our relationship would disintegrate. My wife's been through a lot in her support of me, thank goodness, but I think transitioning just wouldn't work for her.

I have some feelings about this too of course. I'd certainly prefer it if my wife was able to express her support the way Bree does for Nicki. I'd then feel a bit more freer to just be myself and that would take some pressure and uncertainty off of my shoulders. And yes, I've always felt that if I was a woman I'd be a lesbian! 

Thanks for brining up this interesting topic,

Emma

Briannah, thanks for your response and candor. My main objective for my entry was to get members here thinking past HRT and dressing to GRS as I know many don't and this is more so for cisgender not gay or lesbians who have a higher rate of keeping a marriage in tack.

The thing about "I am still the same person...", I used that term for interacting with people when i announced the hard date for my surgeries and not for relationships as this is new territory as I never dated a man, always females so I can't be the same person in relationships with a lover.

You mentioned the breast forms were not what was expected, hopefully they did not cost a lot. Before my breast augmentation I purchased mine from "The Breast Store" and purchased these forms. When I purchased the forms my requirements had nothing to do with how they felt to the touch but instead how they felt moving throughout the day. I tried many breast forms through the years (over thirty years) and these by far were the best.

bree, that is probably the most real, genuine, insightful, and well expressed writing I’ve read in a long time. I totally understand what you’re saying and you explained it extremely well. in my intersex experience, all the women that I’ve been with accepted the feminine part of my identity and sexuality and were wonderful in making love to me as a woman, some with great desire, genuine involvement, passion, and even a little transformation of their own, and a few more mainly to please me rather than for their own or mutual gratification. my saving grace is that they never have to face or contemplate losing the male part of me and the kind of full-on sexual intercourse that they crave and need. most women that I’ve been with absolutely love that and are willing to play lesbians and even be part-time lesbians, but would never want to give that up. sex is so core, partly primal or animalistic. it has a life of its own. it's like a cat. it chooses us rather than we choosing it. I sense that nikki is a long way from transitioning fully from male to female and not mapping that out, but also understand that you think about everything and are aware of the fluidity and uncertainty of it all. There's also the sting of the deception from before and its continuing effects in wondering what might happen next or later in nikki's world that will affect yours. sex, identity, and gender are powerful, but so is love and bonding and you two are so strong in that.

​Not to derail this, but I wanted to share the forms I got. I ended up getting the Motowatar forms and got them for the sale price of $65, which I felt was a really good deal. I didn't want to spend a lot on them because I am trying to lose a significant amount of weight and would want to invest in another pair that's better sized for wherever I'm at that point.

Thank you all for the support and kindness.  I was terrified that being that open about the darker side of what is going on inside me right now would overshadow the lighter side.  Both make me up.  I am struggling and at the same time I am completely committed to making this work as best I can for Nikki and for myself.  I have a lot of fear, and I have a lot of strength.  I think in a lot of ways I have entered a completely new relationship.  Nikki IS different already.  There is no hiding or presentation of behaviors for my benefit, and things have changed for me significantly.  But these changes have not been unwelcome either.  I'm just very aware that there are places I can't follow in this, and that is terrifying to me that I might let Nikki down and break his heart as we go forward.  But It might never happen either, and I'll always be able to live up to everything he wants from me like I am right now.  I don't get a crystal ball here. 

Karen, we did not spend a lot, as Nikki talked about the weight.  And I wanted to be sure that this is going to remain a permanent thing vs. the cyclical things it's been before spending big money.  Just like I wait to make sure each stage of my weight loss isn't a temporary flux before I drop a couple hundred on new clothes or whatever else I need.  We talked it over and once he's been through therapy and sorted out what he needs emotionally and physically, then we'll invest in more permanent things.  For the love of god without the creepy plasticy edges.  FOr the record, the plastic is bothering me just as much on the chicken cutlet thing he's got me wearing (and he's right, I do actually FIT into a single bra now instead of choosing which side of me fits).  He might have caught me trying to steal a silicon real feel marital aid to stuff in my bra today.   

Thank you so much Bluemoon.  I"m trying to be as open and me as I can be in written format so as to not only support him, but also because I really really like the people I have met here and want to forge real and lasting freindships.  Your voices are wonderful, and I enjoy getting to experience them so much. 

emma, I'm so sorry that your wife doesn't join you in your exploration and transformation with the energy and enthusiasm that bree does with nikki. of course, she's a rare and special creature to be that involved and excited about it. it's clear that stems not only from her devotion to him, but her being bisexual and more open or fluid than most about these things and in her overall persona. you show a lot of maturity and wisdom in knowing your limitations with your wife and willingness to sustain a compromise that works to keep your relationship and love intact and alive, without necessarily pursuing your ultimate fantasies. having that lasting love relationship is so valuable and more than many, perhaps most people have, trans or otherwise. you also seem to give yourself the acceptance and freedom to be who you are inside, which is what counts the most. i hope also being yourself here and being here for all of us adds to the richness of your life and satisfaction as a wonderful trans spirit.

Thank you! I am truly blessed to be married to my wife. One piece of advice I received at a gender group meeting was this: don't forget that I have been living with my trans feelings my whole life whereas for my wife it's been much more sudden, foreign, and short-lived. We need to give our partners, families, and friends, time to come to terms with the reality that we are so familiar with.

As for accepting myself: wow, that's been gradual. I lived in deep shame for over five decades. Given what I know now that seems like such a shame but it is what it is. My therapist, my wife, and yes, my own courageous exploration has led over the past two years to my accepting myself much more than I ever have. I have more to go, that's for sure. I think I am made in layers like an onion. I peeled back the TG layer and... oops! There's another one!

Hugs,

Emma

​I totally confess it's so frustrating to realize the changes in my sexuality and have gone on a massive girl pron spree trying to rekindle the feelings stronger in me so that if Nikki's needs change I can try to meet them.  Then I realize no one can rewire this, and I feel stupid, and then do it again.  It's dumb in my head sometimes.  LOL

Hi Karen,  this is an interesting topic.

Maybelle (M) and I are still together and against all the odds she is not only supportive, but also states that I need to get my GRS surgery done soon, I feel that I'm very - no - extremely lucky to have such a wonderful marriage. I also personally know of another girl who has just had her surgery completed, and is still married. OK, HRT causes physical change, thinking differently, softer more forgiving and easygoing personalities (in many cases), but our inner values are unchanged, perhaps albeit displayed slightly differently.

We shouldn't confuse love with lust and sexuality they're separate issues...............Sexuality? yes, that can change for some, formerly heterosexual males do not always become trans lesbians, many seem to become bisexual, but I don't know of many who change completely to heterosexual transwomen. Males that were formally gay however, now are happy to be hetero transwomen.

What of cis women? well they're curious creatures, whom I now understand a whole lot better since 4 years of gradual transition and HRT, and realise that they're all different, I'm looking forward to Valentines Day with my M...................and spending the remainder of my life with her.

Cheers,

Eve

Thanks for the reply, i happy for those were spouses support them but have not heard anyone here who had surgery and can attest to their spouse staying with them. Statistics show that keeping the male genitals keeps many marriages together but afterwards many eventually leave.

Yes, many trans over here have had to fully transition after divorce or divorce is the result of full transition, in any event many separate, but there are some who don't........I think many cis women want to separate because they don't want the social stigma of being thought of as Lesbian........ Not that being LGBT is as much of a social stigma as it used to be, attitudes are changing fast, and I suspect that more who transition in the future will stay married. 

In my gender therapist's group (which I don't attend any longer) there were three transitioned women who remained married, and at least 2-3 who dressed on an "as needed" basis - like at a local trans-friendly boutique - and remained married.  I suspect that's a bit of an anomaly but I found it inspiring nonetheless.

Hi Veronica,

I agree with you that those who transition may just as well want to move on. But hey, what do I know? Only thing I know is that I don't want to move on. I'm missing my wife tonight. Without her I'd be lost, I'm pretty sure of that. 

She and I have a saying "together forever" and that's two words I live by!

Emma

Veronica,

Where I was coming from was from well done specials, two in particular that followed (two in each) four people going from their born gender to their inner gender. Spouses were very supportive until either surgery or soon after surgery. Also from a series on Life time channel where two men were transitioning and their spouses left way before surgery.

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be fantastic if the tables were turned and only a small percent left but seeing these specials and having discussion with people it surely seems the opposite.